Many homes have “four-bed, hospital-like wards with residents separated only by a curtain”. In these circumstances, preventing cross infections is challenging.

Mackenzie Place is owned and operated by Revera, one of a number of private sector providers of long-term care.

Four times more likely

Over the weekend, the Toronto Star reported that Covid-19 deaths in Ontario are far higher in for-profit nursing homes. Its analysis

“shows residents in the province’s for-profit facilities are four times more likely to become infected and die from the virus as those in municipally operated homes.”

If this is true it is deeply worrying and begs the fundamental question of whether the private sector should be in the business of long-term care at all.

Pat Armstrong, a Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at York University, believes long-term care should lie in the public sector. She gave her reasons to the CBC’s Michael Enright in a fascinating conversation on his Sunday Edition on 26 April. Meals and staffing are prime candidates for cost control.

Professor Armstrong paints a picture of what long-term care can be like given imagination and resources. She points to examples overseas, in Scandinavia, where long-term care offers residents a fulfilling and stimulating life.

Newmarket-Aurora MP, Tony Van Bynen, is a member of the Committee and I hope he will explore the public/private issue in the time he has available.

But if this is outside the Committee's terms of reference for the current inquiry - and it may be - he may wish to focus on the guidance from Public Health Canada which is, apparently, in many settings impossible to follow.

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"The Ford government decided last year to end comprehensive annual inspections, opting instead for a complaint-based model — as if seniors suffering from dementia, or without extended families, can truly benefit from the premier’s fetish for snitch lines or online web forms. There is no excuse for not regulating and inspecting comprehensively, annually and aggressively."

Update on 13 May 2020: The Province says it is taking steps to better protect residents and staff in long-term care homes. And the Toronto Star calls for a public inquiry into the crisis in long-term care.

Comments

First and foremost major updates to the Long TermCare Act are required which would force thefor profit companies to increase staff ratios,with adequate pay bases, and building set ups. Doesnt help that most facilities have limited staff and staff that work part time at multiple facilities and the government, because of low Staff numbers, allows those who testedpositive to continue to work with this vulnerablesection of our society